On The Long Road to Love

Another tragedy has occurred due to ignorance and blindness. A young man who does not know who he is and therefore cannot know who anyone else is killed nine people in a church in Charleston, S.C. Nine people who were loved and valuable lost their physical lives, and one young man has forever lost the chance to become loved or valuable.

Unconscious patterns...

Once again the unconsciousness patterns of racism, sexism, tribalism, homophobism, elitism, consumerism and exclusivism have come to the fore and were made very conscious, resulting yet again in the deaths of the unsuspecting by someone rabidly aware of his racist motivations. Lest we turn away in disgust, saying that we are not like this, let us remember that all come into life with unconscious patterns. They are the inheritances of the generations of ethnicities and cultures from which we spring, and to say that they are not present in us is to refuse to look at the mind sets that lie within us. Most of us may truly be unconscious of them and only get flurries when we are upset. Others, however, like Dylann Roof, live keenly alive to the fires of hatred that racism stokes within them.

Mental/spiritual calling...

Nevertheless we cannot linger over the bloody memories of the past as the media would have us do every time a Charleston or a Sandy Hook or a Columbine occur. If we do we will always be reliving the past, reinforcing the old, unconscious patterns and never, as ontologist, Ernest Holmes, puts it, turning from old, inherited conditions and turning to some part of God, the Universal Healer, the best part of ourselves. The spiritually minded all know of this as a mental/spiritual calling every day of their lives, whether there is calm or crisis. If we do not engage this calling we will never see the end of unprovoked killing and violence, no matter how many guns we take off the streets.

The road ahead...

Former President Bill Clinton in his efforts to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together, said it well as he admonished them to forego the “easy habits of hatred” and attend to the “hard tasks of reconciliation.” Let us heal both obvious and unseen wounds in ourselves so that anyone so full of hatred and misunderstanding cannot find a fertile field anywhere. Let us mourn and grieve and do the healing work for Mother Emanuel in Charleston and its congregants and learn from the faithful that forgiveness is the road ahead, and unforgiveness is the path to hell. And let us never, never get off track as we move along the long road to Love.


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